RAM: Where the NRA Dares Not Tread

Guys, as you probably noticed on Facebook, I don’t have time to write a column this week. That’s because I’m too busy working on the latest issue of the Rick Snee Antidisestablishmentarian Militia Quarterly.

And, let me tell you, this has not been an easy one to put together. People seem to be really on our case after Friday’s tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. As you’ve noticed, we and the NRA have been quiet this week, and for good reason: we don’t have to say a word. Our members will do it for us. It’s called viral marketing, and they have caught Second Amendment Fever!

Just, you know, not “school shooting” deadly. (Special thanks to Bill for loaning RAM his living room for the afternoon!)

So, as the nation mourns (again), RAM has nothing to say except that this was a terrible tragedy, and words cannot express how pained we are. Nor can we offer any insight into the actions on that terrible day … but here’s what some ordinary, normal folks (*wink*) have said for us on Facebook and Twitter.

If only the teachers had been armed …

We hate to blame the victims here, but teachers and gun-free schools: you really dropped the ball here. And worse? We told you so.

A gun — and a Bible, because God can’t enter a building thanks to zero tolerance policies — in every classroom could have averted this entire tragedy. And now that’s another case where an armed citizen failed to stop a spree shooting, making the rest of us look bad.

No new, (and don’t) fix old gun laws!

Laws also share some responsibility for Friday’s tragedy. Even though a zero tolerance policy was in place for guns, the killer clearly found his way into the school with three of them. The fact that he was able to shoot over 100 rounds in the time it took a first responder to arrive makes it clear that no law could have limited the capacity of his magazines.

And it’s not just gun laws. Despite all of the laws we have for safely operating motor vehicles, people still die in auto accidents. Sure, they’re mostly through driver negligence, but don’t you remember the good old days when cars killed people with shoddy engineering and a lack of rigorous safety testing? Now we just look stupid every time a teen dies on prom night.

Or what about laws against theft? We have so many laws that make it clear that theft will not be tolerated, and yet somebody will probably steal the arguments out of this post.

There’s only one law that works, and that’s when the framers drafted the Second Amendment. Other laws, though? Wastes of paper.

Movies, video games, and music glorify violence.

I’m not sure when we started letting liberal Hollywood off the hook here, but they probably have as much blood on their hands as anybody. Just look at them, playing down the premiers of Jack Reacher and Django Unchained, both of which are marketed to adults for adults as escapist entertainment.

Nope, you can’t beat the old excuses: movies create murderers, but not smokers, alcoholics, sexists or racists.

Mental health is the real problem here.

There are a lot of fingers to point around here, which is hard for me because I’m doing it while holding a gun, but let’s not forget crazy people. I mean, what normal person would use a gun to shoot people, especially children?

We have to remember that all of these shootings, be it in Colorado, Arizona, Colorado again and Connecticut are each the deranged work of five sick, evil individuals. Just like the other 11,493 homicides with firearms in 2010 — all the work of a few sick, evil individual psychos who we can’t stop.

So, good thing we won’t try to, right? Because unless we stop all crazy people from committing homicides, then what’s the point? (Until we finally bag one with our guns — now that’s mental health treatment!)